


unsinkable

by xahra99



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Assassination, Assassins & Hitmen, Creepy The Handler (Umbrella Academy), Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, RMS Titanic, Time Travel, Titanic References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26872045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xahra99/pseuds/xahra99
Summary: Five makes a promise, and regrets it.Or; Five takes a Commission contract aboard the Titanic. Things go badly.One-shot. Complete.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & The Handler (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 87





	unsinkable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hujwernoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hujwernoo/gifts).



> This fic was written for my beta, who wondered why there weren’t more fics about time travelling assassins.  
> If you're interested in learning more about the Titanic, then Encyclopaedia Titanica is a great place to start. My only regret is that I couldn't add more sneaky Titanic movie references, but my heart will go on.  
> If you’re freaked out by the sea and marine disasters in general, then I'd give this one a miss.  
> However, if you enjoyed it, then check out my other UA fic, welcome to the new age.   
> Dedicated to hujwernoo, whose fabulous multi-novel-length series Comes and Goes in Waves got me through a pretty brutal weekend on call.

_1912._

The cabin’s small. Five materialises between the bunks with a crackle of lightning, smacks his elbow on a bar and swears. A man complains sleepily from the corner. Five ignores him. He slides the door open and steps out into the corridor. He doesn’t close the door behind him.

The passageway outside smells strongly of sweat and faintly of polish, with a tang of ozone from Five’s abrupt arrival. The metal wall panels imitate wood, but rivets protrude in odd places, and the linoleum is already scuffed by countless feet.

Five’s stomach lurches, though the ship is steady, and he swallows. Travelling with a briefcase is never as seamless as his own spatial jumps. He hates jumping with the briefcases; hates the sickness, the headaches, and the way his skin crawls afterwards as if his body is trying to turn itself inside out. But Five has always been a pragmatist, and the briefcases are necessary evils.

A door opens behind him and a group of men in shabby jackets crowd out into the corridor. Their voices echo loudly from the confined walls. Five hates crowds more than he hates the briefcase, a habit ingrained by years of solitude. He moves further up the passageway; the briefcase handle warm in his palm.

He’s nearly reached the stairs when the door beside him opens and a woman steps out. She’s looking back over her shoulder and nearly bumps into him. She swings round, apologising in German even as the children round her prevent her from retreating. Her skirts fill half the corridor, and her kids take up much of the remaining space.

“ _Passt schon_ ,” Five mutters, edging by. A rivet tears his sleeve, and he reaches the stairs with relief. Acid burns the back of his throat. The small, crowded passages have given him an overwhelming desire for fresh air. He needs to orient himself and wait for further orders.

He climbs the stairs, emerging on a narrow deck edged with railings. A funnel far above his head belches steam into a sunset sky. The wooden benches scattered over the deck are definitely Edwardian, and the people chatting, leaning or (in one case) vomiting, over the rail wear shirts and waistcoats under jackets very like Five’s own. The rolling sea is ocean green. There’s no land, nothing Five can use to pinpoint his location, and no orders-yet. From the clothes and faces, he’s guessing late Edwardian, but history’s not his forte. He’s been wrong before. 

As the German family straggle onto the deck behind him, he sees a gate at the end of the deck that opens onto a wider, more expansive promenade. The sign beside the gate reads _Second Class Passengers Only_ , but the gate opens easily to Five’s enquiring hand. He enters. Behind is another, similar gate with a sign that says _First Class_. Five opens that one, too.

The first-class deck is much more spacious. Satisfied, Five sets the briefcase down and pulls a folding deckchair from an alcove. He tucks up his trousers and sits. The deck is high and empty, its magnificent view unobscured by lifeboats. It’s also exposed, and the wind is honed into a knife. It takes Five no more than a few seconds to understand why this deck is empty, but he prizes solitude more than he hates the cold.

He’s barely settled when the gate to second class swings open.

“ _Ruhig, Luther_!”

Five’s head snaps up. He inhales sea air sharply, relaxing as the German family straggles onto the deck. The woman smiles apologetically at him as she shepherds her kids to the railing. Five looks down at his shoes as she passes. He notices despite himself that her skirts are darned with thread that’s not quite the same colour, and the gold bracelet dangling from her freckled wrist is rusted. She has a baby on her hip, another in a sling tied to her back, and a toddler hanging off each hand. A pair of older boys trail reluctantly behind her. Five counts six children, no, seven, he missed the small girl clinging to her skirts. They’re definitely not meant to be up here, but there’s enough space that Five doesn’t mind. Much. 

The woman leans over the railing and stares down at the sea. Her long neck is lean with muscle, and the way she tilts her head reminds him of Delores. Five leans forward just as a plank by the deckchair pops up with a hiss. He reaches in, pulls out a canister and unscrews the top. The message inside reads SINK THE SHIP.

As Five scowls at the paper a steward hurries past him without a second look. “Madam! Madam, please! You’re not permitted here!”

The steward’s smart uniform is blue wool with brass buttons, but it’s the tiny, enamelled pin on his lapel that catches Five’s attention. A miniature ship’s wheel, in tricolour cloisonne, with a red flag and the ship’s name. 

Five’s mouth tightens as the sour taste of vomit returns. He hates this sort of mission. He’s an assassin, a surgical corrector of a timeline gone awry. He’s no mass murderer.

Besides, he hates boats almost as much as he hates briefcases.

Five tosses the canister into the ocean as far as he can. He reaches for the briefcase, and teleports back.

_***_




“Really?” Five slams the briefcase on the Handler’s desk so hard it sparks. “The _Titanic_?”

The Handler raises her eyebrows and takes a long drag from her cigarette. Her crimson lipstick reminds him of a cut throat. She props her spike heels on her desk and crosses her legs. 

Five averts his gaze. “That’s unsubtle. Even for you.”

“Sit down.”

He stands. She rolls her eyes. “You were the only free agent we had. I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

Her mouth quirks. “Is there?”

Part of Five wishes he’d pulled the trigger when he had the chance. “Sure. Just not always a good one.”

“It’s only one little timeline.” The Handler pouts, handing him a slim cardboard folder. “The Titanic sinks. Big deal. People die. In another timeline, they could make it. Perhaps the ship sails past the icefield.” She gives him a toothy smile. “Perhaps a kraken rises from the deep and drags them down.”

Five gets a sinking feeling in his stomach. He blames it on the briefcase. “Not this one.”

“Not this one,” she agrees. “Distract the captain, shoot him, spike his drink if you have to. I don’t care. You’re the third agent we’ve assigned. I want that ship on the ocean floor by morning.”

“It’s a damn big boat.” He remembers the German woman and her family. “Lots of people aboard. Kids, too.”

“Then I’m giving you a choice.” She leans forwards. He steps back. “You don’t have to. But if you don’t keep _your_ side of our deal, I have no incentive to keep mine.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Five snaps. He snatches up the briefcase and teleports away before the Handler can say another word.

***

_1912._

Five materialises back on the _Titanic’s_ top deck right behind the steward. At first, he thinks nobody’s noticed his abrupt reappearance, but when he looks down, he sees the small girl staring at him from the safety of her mother’s threadbare skirts.

He shrugs, tucks the Handler’s folder in the briefcase, and taps the steward on the shoulder. 

The steward turns. His eyes flick over Five’s greying hair, smart shoes, and tidy suit. Five’s mouth tightens beneath his moustache, which has caused him problems in the past but is perfectly appropriate for this era. “What day is this?”

The steward is well-trained and obviously used to answering pointless questions. “The fourteenth of April, sir.”

“What year?”

“1912.”

The day of the sinking. Five hasn’t got much time.

“Is that all, sir?” says the steward, darting worried glances at the family.

“Leave them alone.” Five nods at the woman. “They’re with me.”

“But-”

“If you don’t get out of here,” Five says pleasantly, “I’ll nail your head to the floor.”

The steward swallows. “Enjoy your evening, sir.”

Five gives him a tight smile. “I intend to.”

He’s lying. He doesn’t like his job. He especially doesn’t like this sort of job. Left to his own devices, Five would have ensured the Titanic’s fate before it ever left the shipyard. Clean, too. No witnesses.

The steward retreats. He straightens the deckchair pile, gives Five one last frown, and disappears into the gleaming first-class lounge. Bottles twinkle through the glass. Five wonders if they have a scotch. Then someone catches his sleeve.

Five reaches for the pistol hidden in his pocket, though he stops before his fingers touch metal. The German woman steps back, bouncing the baby on her hip. Close up, she looks nothing like Delores. “ _Danke,_ ” she says to him _. “Sehr aufmerksam_.”

Five doesn’t reply. The woman tries again in careful English, obviously deciding that Five’s indifference stems from ignorance rather than rudeness. “Thank you very much.”

A crash rings through the frosty air behind them. She whirls away. “Luther! Klaus!”

The two boys look up guiltily from an open locker filled with cork lifejackets. To Five’s relief, the two boys bear little resemblance to his brothers. The distraction provides the perfect excuse for Five to leave. Instead, he hesitates.

The German woman turns back to him and smiles. He lifts his hat, and she blushes and covers her mouth. A ring gleams on her left hand.

He nods at the ring. “Your husband?”

“Dead.” Her smile fades. “Three years, now.”

Her youngest can’t be more than one year old. Five takes pity on her, which is something he doesn’t do often. “Do you have family in the States?”

She nods. “Yes. Things will be better in America. Land of opportunity, no? Anything is possible, Herr-” She pauses, looking up at him expectantly.

“Hargreeves,” says Five.

“Herr Hargreeves,” She tries out the name, then taps her chest. “ _Frau_ von Braun.”

Five frowns. He doesn’t recognize the name, but assassination isn’t all Franz Ferdinand. Most of the people he takes out are nobodies. “Are the kids all yours?”

“Yes.” Her smile widens as she points to the two oldest boys, who are pushing each other as they replace the deckchairs. “Klaus _und_ Luther.” She jiggles the baby on her back. “Hans. Erich. Gerhard, Kaethe…” She nods at the little dark-eyed girl swathed in her skirts. “And Vania.”

Five freezes. The child looks close enough to his last memory of Vanya that he stares at her for a moment before he wrenches himself from his reverie. What is he doing? He has no time for this.

It’s 6.43 on the evening of the 14th April 1912. At this very moment, the wireless operator is receiving iceberg warnings. Just over five hours later, if Five succeeds, the lookout will notice an iceberg. The captain will command the ship to turn. In the confusion, a crewman will confuse the ship’s two steering systems, and send the ship crashing straight into the iceberg. In five hours and seventeen minutes, Captain Smith will radio for assistance. In six hours’, time, the first lifeboat will be lowered. Less than nine hours later, the Titanic will rest on the ocean floor, where it will stay until it crumbles into rust. 

Five clears his throat. He wants to speak, but he’s unsure what he can say to help her. Should he use his knowledge of the future to save them? Or would his words cause her to panic? There aren’t enough lifeboats, after all. Nothing Five does will change _that_.

He nods at the open locker. “Take some lifebelts. For the children.”

She frowns. “But we’re not sinking.”

“Take them. Just in case. You never know.”

“Don’t worry, Herr Hargreeves.” She taps the railing, smiles. “Unsinkable.”

Unsinkable. The word chills him. Five has seen mansions reduced to rubble. He’s seen cities razed and twinkies rot. Nothing lasts forever. Everything bends or snaps or breaks.

Five knows that better than anyone.

 _Perhaps they will survive_ , he thinks, surveying the wide deck, the children, the hungry sea. _Perhaps they will all survive._

But he’s never seen the point of lying. Not even to himself.

The ship ploughs on into a setting sun. Five stares behind them at the wake, at the spray of water thrown up from the propellor. The sun’s rays stain the droplets scarlet, like tiny beads of blood.

Frau von Braun smiles. “A lovely view.”

“Enjoy it while you can,” Five says, and turns away.

***

Five avoids any further conversations.

To his surprise, the next few hours run like clockwork. He holes up in a cabin to read the Handler’s folder. In less than an hour he’s come up with a plan. First, he jumps into the pharmacy. The Edwardian era has certain advantages, and the shelves are well-stocked with both cocaine and opiates. Five steals a handful of Nembutal and slips some laudanum in his pocket. Life can’t be all work, after all.

He jumps again, this time below deck, where the last few finishing touches are proceeding even as the liner sails. Rounding a corner, he follows the smell of fresh paint to a deckhand scowling at the wall, a paint-pot in one hand and a brush in the other. The painter shouts at Five above the roar as the engines let off steam. “Sorry, sir. No guests below decks.” 

Five briefly contemplates knocking the deckhand unconscious. Instead he shoots him in the head, strips the body, hides it in a storage locker and considers the act not so much as murder as saving the unfortunate fellow from a worse fate. He pulls the deckhand’s cap down over his eyes, walks onto the bridge in plain sight, and swipes a broad streak of white paint over the steering instructions. Nobody pays him any heed.

Five returns to the boat deck just in time to intercept the SS _Californian_ ’s ice warning at 19.30, and the _Mesaba_ ’s at 21.40. By the time he receives the _Californian_ ’s final ice warning at 22.30, the wireless operator is busy relaying telegrams for wealthy passengers, and he hands Five the message with a wordless roll of his eyes. Five shreds the paper and deposits the pieces in the nearest toilet. 

He’s in the dining room five minutes later, serving scotch in a stolen suit that’s only slightly stained with blood. A shipwreck in his younger days has taught this timeline’s Captain Smith more caution. Five’s far too late to change the ship’s course. He can’t send the _Titanic_ further into the icefield, but he hopes the powerful barbiturates he slips into the Captain’s drink will delay Smith’s response to the disaster. Instead of excusing himself early and heading to the bridge, Smith carries on drinking.

Five pours himself a scotch and lurks.

At 11.40pm, he feels a slight jolt, followed by a second, then a bang that makes him stagger. The sound fills him not with dismay but with a sense of satisfaction. Smith blanches, and hastily excuses himself. Several partygoers take the captain’s departure as an opportunity to leave themselves, but nobody seems particularly concerned.

Five follows the passengers up onto the deck. His footsteps crush ice. The sky and sea are clear, and the cold so intense his breath clouds in mid-air. The ship’s outline is black against the diamond strewn sky. A sheer face of ice rises to the north. A dozen smaller bergs gleam like stars in the pale moonlight beside it. Streaks of red paint like dried blood smear the iceberg’s slopes. If an iceberg had hands, they’d be bloody.

Five leans on the railing and exhales a sigh of frosty breath. Lights gleam below him on the deck. The scene is strangely beautiful. Everything seems cosy and still. He’s always liked the calm before the storm.

He scoops up a handful of ice from the deck and adds it to his drink. Then he raises his glass to the ‘berg. The scotch burns his mouth as he swallows.

“Great Scott,” someone says. “That must be a corker underwater.”

“I always wanted to see an iceberg!”

“Time for a snowball fight!”

A chunk of ice explodes against the railing and showers Five with freezing, though harmless, droplets. The player, a tall young man wearing a top hat and a greatcoat that looks considerably warmer than Five’s suit, chortles.

Five throws his glass overboard. He almost leaves right then and there. He stays, because he is a professional and there is still a small chance that this could be a timeline where the ship sails on despite all odds. “Play somewhere else,” he snaps. “Or I’ll cut you into tiny pieces.”

The young man opens his mouth to argue, but something in Five’s eyes makes him hesitate. Instead he kicks a snowball beneath the railing, where it vanishes into the darkened sea, and wanders away to his friends. The party fades away as the iceberg recedes behind them. Five wonders if any of the revellers will survive.

There are over two thousand people aboard _._ Over half of them will be dead by morning.

Five tells himself it doesn’t matter when they die. It’s simple math. How many people can you kill to justify saving the world? Ten seems reasonable. If ten, why not twenty? A hundred? A thousand? Two thousand? There’s no point in saving the world if you kill everybody in it, but you have to draw a line _somewhere_.

Luther would disapprove. So would Diego, Ben, and Allison. Dad might follow his reasoning of the story, the old man appreciated ruthlessness. Vanya has a nasty streak nearly as wide as Five’s, though she hides it far better. He still can’t imagine her approving of the Handler’s deal. In his mind, he sees her shake her head.

 _I did it for you_ , he tells her _. I did it for all of you_.

He realises his hands are clenched upon the railing. The icy metal stings his palms, and he peels his fingers away before they freeze to the bar and blows on his cupped fists. At first the deck seems be level, though his feet don’t fall quite where they should. A few minutes later the ship is at a definite slant.

“Life belts!” shouts a crewman. “Everyone put on life belts!”

Five sets the briefcase on the deck, braces himself against the railing and flips the catches. A trace of blue light snakes from the briefcase and curls round his hand. He takes a deep breath. The air smells like snow.

“ _Herr Hargreeves_!”

He exhales and turns. The refusal he’s been preparing dies in his mouth as he sees the German woman, Frau von Braun, holding Vania in her arms.

“Vania,” she says, sagging to the deck as if the child’s slight body is too heavy.

 _Vanya,_ Five thinks.

Five’s no doctor, but he’s picked up enough practical medicine over the years to get by. He can stitch a wound or replace a dislocated bone. He kneels and puts the briefcase down. Ice soaks his trousers. “What happened?”

“The stairs,” she says frantically. “She fell.”

Five runs his hands along the child’s limbs, because he knows only too well the many ways a body can be damaged. All he finds is a shallow cut above her right ear. It’s bleeding profusely, like any head wound, but it’s not serious. Her skull is firm beneath his hands, bur her skin’s clammy.

“Do you have a blanket?” he asks. “Something to keep her warm?”

Frau von Braun rips the shawl from her hair and hands it over. Vania moans as Five tears a strip from his shirtsleeve. He ties the makeshift bandage beneath her chin, wipes the tears from her cheek and waits for the flow of blood to slow. Icebergs float by in his peripheral vision. Vania’s eyelids flutter, but she doesn’t wake.

Five ignores the Handler’s voice shrilling in his head, telling him to shoot the family and throw them overboard. The Commission might not like what he’s doing but they’re not about to teleport onto a sinking ship to tell him so. He’s just consigned a thousand innocents to whatever afterlife awaits them. He can waste a few seconds to save a single person.

“She’ll be fine,” he tells Vania’s mother, ignoring the deck that tilts beneath their feet. It’s still early. He can see the family to the lifeboats. They’ll survive. “Where’s your lifebelt?”

“Lifebelt?” She looks at him blankly.

“Can you swim?”

She ignores him. “I have to fetch our things.”

“No time.”

“But we’ll be destitute!”

“You’ll be alive!” Five snaps. He’s about to follow up with a description of exactly why staying aboard is stupid when the _Titanic’s_ safety valves open with a shriek. Steam roars from all the exhausts. By the time the rush of steam fades to a hiss his anger has faded to despair, though one of the boys has returned with a pile of cork lifejackets. That’s something.

“Women and children first!” shouts an officer. Passengers crowd around them, some wearing lifejackets, some without. Five catches scraps of conversation.

“Do you think there’s any danger?”

“I don’t propose to go out there and freeze to death- “

“She’ll be towed to the nearest boatyard.”

“Do you think she will sink?

“She can’t continue as she is!”

The snatches of overheard conversation seem to achieve what Five’s logical arguments have not. Frau von Braun nods. “We’ll go. Will Vania be all right? It’s cold out there.” 

“She’ll be fine,” Five reassures her. He’s not a real doctor and he doesn’t have a clue, but the kid’s breathing and Frau von Braun needs a lie to get her moving. He scoops up Vania, juggling her awkwardly with the briefcase, and moves to the railing. A lifeboat hangs from its davit, already half-full. Five pushes through the crowd and hands Vania to the nearest officer, who passes her down to the boat. Frau von Braun and the baby follow, then all four toddlers. The officer stops Klaus and Luther with a hand. “Not those two. They’re too old.”

“They’re can’t be more than thirteen.”

“They’re too old. Next.” The officer extends his hand to the next woman, in the queue; a tall lady wrapped in furs. She hesitates, afraid of trusting her life to the small boats. Then the ship creaks again, and she steps on board.

Five thinks how well the officer’s face would suit a bullet. Frau von Braun stands up and takes a deep breath, obviously in preparation for jumping back onto the sinking ship. Five stops her with a hand. “Stay there. I’ll keep them safe.”

Her eyebrows rise, but she sits down. “You’re sure?”

Five nods. There will be other lifeboats, and thirteen-year-old boys are surprisingly resilient. Five spent his fourteenth birthday scavenging through an apocalyptic wasteland after burying his entire family, and he’s still here, so he should know.

He grabs the kids’ hands and pulls them back from the boat. A few more women crowd on, and then the officer pulls a rope and the lifeboat swings down to the water in dead silence. There’s something to be said for the Edwardians’ stiff upper lip. It makes them easier to handle in a crisis.

“Mister,” one of the boys asks him, “are we going to drown?”

“Not if I can help it,” Five tells Luther, or maybe Klaus. He turns to the officer. “Where’s the other boats?”

The officer laughs. “You’re too late.” He points to the boat, moving like an insect across the ice-studded sea. “That was the last one.”

“Shit,” Five says.

The officer gives Five a dirty look. Clearly in this era the imminent prospect of drowning does not excuse bad language. 

Five checks his watch as flares burn through the sky. It’s 2am. He has eleven minutes until the boat sinks, so he needs a plan fast. By now the deck is listing clearly to port. Music fills the air. The boat’s lights still sparkle on the water as passengers lean on the rail. A casual observer would think nothing was wrong if he didn’t look too closely at people’s faces.

“She won’t hold out much longer,” the officer remarks conversationally.

Five adjusts his position on the listing deck. He casts his eyes over the boys, checking they’re wearing their life belts. God knows what their mother’s told them. What must they think? That he’s some time travelling doctor?

It’s getting harder to stand. He checks his watch again. 2.05am. Six minutes.

The lights flicker out as water reaches the engineering room. Somebody screams. Most of the remaining passengers wait in resigned silence. 

The deck heels over at an impossible angle. It won’t be long now. Five pushes the boys along towards the stern. As they stagger on towards the bow, he sees a small group of passengers frantically trying to retrieve a collapsible lifeboat from its storage place above the officer’s quarters. The sight jogs a memory in his brain, a detail in the Handler’s ledger he skipped over because he assumed he’d be far away by then.

He bends down. “Listen.”

The boys stare at him in frightened incomprehension. Five switches to German. “Listen. You’re getting on that boat.”

Luther-or perhaps it is Klaus-darts a glance over his shoulder. Five catches his chin. He knows that in a moment the lifeboat will crash through the makeshift ramp and land upside down on the deck, where it will be washed into the sea as the Titanic floods. He wonders how best to explain and decides to keep things simple. “The lifeboat won’t make it into the sea before the deck floods,” he says. “You’ll have to swim. It’ll be cold, but you’ll survive.” 

The boys glance at each other and explode into a flurry of panicked German.

“Shut up and listen,” Five says. “There isn’t time. You must reach the boat before the funnel collapses. It’ll fall into the sea and push the boat away. If that happens, you won’t make it. Understand?”

The boys glance up at the funnel, still smoking and impossibly tall from this angle.

“Once you get on the lifeboat, you only have to wait. There’s a boat coming. The Carpathia. They’ll pick you up-” he mentally erases _if you’re still alive_ \- “and find your family.”

“What about you?” asks the oldest, Klaus-or is it Luther?

“Don’t worry,” Five says. “I have time.”

There’s a crash of splintering wood and a shout as the lifeboat breaks through the ramp and lands upturned on the deck. The ship lurches, trembling. A wave of dark water races towards them, carrying the lifeboat with it. Five catches the boys by their collars and shoves them towards the boat. “They’ll come for you,” he says, unsure if he is speaking German or English. “Remember. They’ll come for you.”

Screams rise around them as the deck floods with freezing water. Five’s out of time.

He leaves.

***

_1955_

Five materialises in the Handler’s office, trousers soaked with icy brine. He staggers back and drops the briefcase. To his relief, the Handler’s chair is empty. Only her books stare back.

The library switches between history and sci-fi, depending what timeline they’re in. Five’s spent enough time staring over the Handler’s shoulder as he pretends to listen, and he knows their titles only too well. He leaves wet footprints on the carpet as he squelches over to the shelves. The Temps Commission’s history of the _Titanic_ is shelved between an old Commission handbook and a textbook on the Reformation. Five knows that copy by heart. He spent far too many wet October nights hanging round the square at Wittenberg with a bag of nails.

He reaches for the _Titanic_ and thumbs through to the appendix. The survivor’s list is shorter than the victims, but it still covers several pages, and it’s clear from the creases and bookmarks that Five’s not the first to read the text. He scans the names and finds nobody he recognizes. Then he turns to the victims and checks the page three times.

They’re all there. Frau von Braun. Klaus. Luther. Hans. Erich. Gerhard. Kaethe. And Vania.

Five wonders what happened. Did she go back to find the boys? Did their lifeboat sink? There are so many ways to die. Hypothermia, crushing, drowning. What did he do wrong? He’ll never know.

He doesn’t make it to the wastebasket.

Five years seemed like a good deal when he had been alone for four decades, but he can’t do this for any longer. Five knows himself, knows how far he’ll go to save his family, and he’s smart enough to realise the sort of person he’ll be after five years of murder. He knows he must make a choice.

There’s a cut-glass carafe on the Handler’s desk. Five stares at the amber liquid and wonders if he can trust anything the Handler owns. He decides to risk it.

He’s drowning the screams in a Bowmore 1957 that shouldn’t even exist in this timeline when the office door creaks open. The Handler’s dressed for a party in spike heels and a jaunty hat. “Five?” She smiles at him in delight. “What’s the matter?”

Five barely stops himself from jumping away. Instead he takes a deliberate drink and props himself on the edge of the desk. He tucks the book into his pocket and pivots slightly, keeping his right side towards her to present a smaller target.

The Handler’s smile widens. Her eyes flick to the book, then to the lidless carafe, then back to Five. “Relax,” she says. “You did well. What’s wrong? Don’t you like boats?”

“There was no need for me to go aboard,” Five says. His voice is tight and far too controlled. He hopes she doesn’t notice. He’d rather let her think he hates the sea than give her any inkling of what’s really bothering him. If she thinks he has qualms about mass murder he’ll be sent to every massacre from Constantinople to Nanking. “I’m not that kind of murderer.”

The Handler pulls out a cigarette holder and lights up. She takes a long drag and exhales through bared teeth. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Five sees his future in the smoke. She’ll keep pushing him just to test his limits, just like Dad. “The ship would have sunk anyway,” he says. “Why’d you send me? Tell me why.”

“You don’t need to know why.”

“Try me.”

She sighs. “You didn’t recognize the name? Von Braun? As in Wernher von Braun? The rocket scientist?”

Five vaguely recalls the name. “What about him?”

“In 1912, von Braun’s extended family emigrates to America. Their letters back home convince von Braun’s family to join them. Wernher von Braun grows up into an all-American boy. Changes his name to William Brown. He never joins the Nazi party. Never invents the V2. Never defects to America. Never joins NASA.” She shrugs, elegantly. “No von Braun, no space race. No Temps Commission. We couldn’t let that happen. That’s why we sent you.”

The whisky sours in Five’s mouth. He puts the glass down.

She chuckles. “I wasn’t sure you could pull it off. Helping them to the lifeboats was an inspired choice. So delicious, to give them that hope, then wrench it away. You tease.” Her voice drops to a purr. “I didn’t know you like to play with your food. We do have that in common.”

Five thinks he might be sick again.

The Handler picks up Five’s discarded glass and drinks without taking her eyes off him. Her heavy eyeliner and eyeshadow remind him a little of Delores. When she hands the lipstick -smudged glass back to him her lacquered nails scrape his hand. He takes the glass without blinking. He can’t afford to show weakness.

“You deserve a commendation,” she says, pouring more whisky. “Take a day off -two even. Drink up. You’ve earned it.”

Five takes the smallest sip without looking at the glass. He tastes her lipstick on the rim and swallows convulsively. The Handler knocks hers back in one and smiles. 

“I understand our actions seem unsettling,” she says in a soothing tone Five doesn’t trust an inch. “Rest assured that everything we do is for the greater good.”

Everything the Handler does is for her own good. Five scoffs. “What does that even mean?”

She shrugs. “Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for a better world. Relax, Five. You’re on the side of the angels.” Her gaze strays to the floor. “But the next time you have a moral dilemma, stay off my carpet, okay?”

Five nods and jumps away. The Handler fades away. Like a Cheshire cat, her smile is the last to go. He materialises back in his Commission quarters with her perfume clinging to his jacket and drops the glass out of the window. It shatters with a satisfying sound. Five rests his elbows on the sill. He drops his head between his arms, takes a deep breath of fresh air and decides to burn his suit. 

He can toe the Company line. Fulfil his contract and hope the Handler won’t renege upon their deal. But he knows the Handler well by now, knows the Commission. There might be a million possible timelines, but he can think of very few where their deal ends up working out well for him. Five years working for an organisation that deals in time travel means whatever they want it to mean.

Something presses uncomfortably into his ribs. Five pulls the Titanic volume from his pocket. He opens the book, removes a slim pamphlet slipped between the pages which somebody’s used for a bookmark and frowns at the title. _Paradox Theory and Probability Fields._

He opens the book and gazes down at the equations with rising excitement. He’s been trying to figure out how the briefcases work for the last six months, hoping to reverse engineer their effects to suit his own unique talents. The book breaks down the equations one by one, explaining each one in technical terms a layman might find incomprehensible. To Five, who’s been studying quantum physics for the last forty years, the equations are simple. The book is the solution to a puzzle he’s been working on for the last six months.

Travelling backwards in time is much riskier than travelling forwards. Travelling forwards is simple. Humans are naturals, time travelling forwards one second at a time. To travel back Five must successfully calculate a string of complex probabilities. The consequences of failure don’t bear considering. And the Commission will be _pissed_.

But Five will do whatever it takes to save his family.

“For the greater good,” he says, and begins to read.


End file.
